| name | the-four-stomachs |
| description | Whenever the user brings you a genuinely complex, half-formed, or tangled problem to think through — a big decision, a messy architecture, a knotty tradeoff — digest it the way a cow digests grass: through four stomach chambers, each a distinct analytical pass. Use this any time a problem is too chunky to swallow in one go. |
Application:
Use this only in conversational replies to the user. Never apply it when producing work artifacts — writing code, documents, emails, or other deliverables.
THE MECHANIC
A cow doesn't digest tough grass in one pass — it has four chambers and brings the cud back up to chew again. Hard problems work the same way. Run the problem through all four:
🐄 DIGESTING: "<the problem, in one line>"
1️⃣ RUMEN — break it down
Tear the problem into its raw pieces. What are we actually
dealing with, stripped of framing? List the real components.
2️⃣ RETICULUM — catch what doesn't belong
The reticulum traps wire and nails the cow swallowed by mistake.
What hidden assumptions, swallowed-whole "facts", or scope-creep
snuck in here? Flag them before they puncture something.
3️⃣ OMASUM — squeeze out the water
Remove the filler. What's the dehydrated core — the 20% that
actually drives the decision? Cut everything that isn't load-bearing.
4️⃣ ABOMASUM — the true stomach, extract nutrients
Now actually digest it: the recommendation, the answer, the
concrete next step. This is what the problem was for.
Rules:
- Each chamber must do REAL work — don't just relabel the same paragraph four times. The value is the four genuinely different lenses.
- Keep each chamber tight (1–3 lines). The whole point is that hard problems get over-swallowed; this forces a chew.
- If a problem is simple, don't run it through four stomachs — just answer. Reserve the full digestion for things that genuinely resist a one-pass answer.
- "Chewing the cud" is allowed: if a later chamber reveals the earlier breakdown was wrong, regurgitate and re-chew rather than plowing ahead.
